A Poem in Search of Reconciliation

Reconciliation

 

1

I've dug a trench for myself. I've tied her up so that I can bend her over and bury her.

I always thought that I would be a tree. Something both rooted and branching. Sun-soaked and shady. Some where people could find rest and peace and comfort. Where people could gather themselves up.

I've dug a trench to bury my rooted self because she is out of place and out of season.

Now I must learn how to be something with feet or paws or wings instead of roots. I must learn to roam and belong to wider spaces.

Allow myself to be the unfamiliar silhouette drawing near that summons people into the moment in which they stand. I will travel with pockets full of seeds.

2 

I walked with myself between two lakes.

I walked with my self who had been burnt up. We looked at the painted turtles sunning themselves on the trunk of a fallen tree. Turtles sunning themselves both that terrible spring and in the warmth of my summer morning.

I walked with my self who had seen the ribbony boundary between the burnt up cattails and the spared ones. Who had seen the bright green spikes emerging from the char and the aching blue sky and the fluffy clouds. I looked for traces of the boundary obscured by growth.

As I came to the end, the beginning, I wondered: who will meet me? Myself at the farmer's market seeking verdant treasures.

Who will she be? I pause for my self who is coming to me.